Tyre Pressure Monitoring System

I have ticked the TPMS box for the first time ever. Ever since I have been reading on the FFRR forum of problems with the wheel sensors calling wolf and generally giving lots of hassles.
Does anybody have TPMS on their current car and what problems have you had?

The wife had this on her Mini Cooper S. Yes it was a bit of a pain as it did give several false alarms.

I've had it on a Cooper as well. Indeed it regularly gives a false alarm, but you can "reset" the sensor after checking, which solves it (for a couple of weeks).
On the other hand it did save me twice, when it worked properly and I did have a flat tyre.

I have it on my Ford Kuga and I found it useless. We had two blow outs on outs on the passenger side. While driving on a country road I must have hit something (stone I assume) that took out the tyres.

I then had to find somewhere to pull over and inspect, but at the time we thought I hit side of the vehicle based on the sound initially and didn't realise we had blown both tyres.

Point being the sensors didn't do anything. I was then told that they only work based on a slow release if pressure and wouldn't work on blow-outs.

Saying that we had a previous puncture that didn't put the alarm on either - probably did it's because it's a Ford using cheap products!

I have it on my current MINI. It is standard with run flat tyres. I'm pretty sure the BMW system only works when you touch the brakes as it is linked to the ABS. So if you are on the motorway there is a good chance you'll notice a flat tyre before the system alerts you. I wouldn't pay extra for it.

The system that is fitted to Minis is not the same one that is fitted to present LR products
The ones in my FFRR have a sensor on the valves in each tyre.
The mini system uses the sensors that are used for the abs to determine the rolling rate of each tyre so if a tyre is flat it will rotate faster than the others so an alarm is given don't know about the ford one but i know this system is used in a lot of cars as its cheaper.

(14-04-2011 10:21am)FullFatTim Wrote:  Does anybody have TPMS on their current car and what problems have you had?

Not on my own Pug, but I know a few 407 owners that have to run higher pressures than they'd like. This is to stop the alarm going off.

Not had a problem with ours at all

(14-04-2011 12:05pm)wardpg Wrote:  The system that is fitted to Minis is not the same one that is fitted to present LR products
The ones in my FFRR have a sensor on the valves in each tyre.
The mini system uses the sensors that are used for the abs to determine the rolling rate of each tyre so if a tyre is flat it will rotate faster than the others so an alarm is given don't know about the ford one but i know this system is used in a lot of cars as its cheaper.

The mini system sounds similar to the Ford as that's how the service centre described how it worked when changing the tyres and wondering why it didn't go off when we had blow outs - as you described based on rolling rate.

Low cost TPM systems do seem to use the ABS wheel rotation sensors to detect a difference in rotation speed but the LR system has pressure sensors in each wheel which transmit to aerials inside each wheel arch - if you look in the back of the User Handbook, there's type approval information form Siemens VDO and Continental for the radio transmitters used. All fine, except...

The LR system does not display the pressure in each tyre, by toggling to a page on the on screen display, it's simply a warning and if you never see the warning light, you are meant to assume all is well. Audi charge £85 for this level of function, LR £405. I have a 911 with TPM and it shows the actual pressure - quite accurately - of each tyre which changes at the tyre warms in use. That system cost little more than the LR system which makes the LR system spectacularly bad value for money in terms of the function provided.

Thinking of deleting it from my order...